Let’s look at the BIG PICTURE of WHY this conversation on depression is so important. A recent Gallup Poll estimated that the percentage of U.S. adults who report having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetime has reached 29.0% - That’s nearly a third of us. And it’s been ramping up because in 2015 it was somewhere around 19%... that’s 10 percentage points higher in less than 10 years.
The CDC reported that the number of office visits with depressive disorders as the primary diagnosis is 15 million. And this is just what we know from the data of those who’ve self-selected to reach out for help. There is a very real pain that millions of us contend with. If it’s not you, it’s someone you know.
So, today we are going to call out two central sources of depression, considering where God is in all of this, as well as our response to it.
Let’s think of it like main arteries, these two sources that feed every kind of depression, the two categories being External Causalities and Internal Contributions. From these two high level concepts derive every form of depression.
The first that we’ll consider, is the concept of External Causalities, or to put it another way, the many worlds of things that are out of our CONTROL. If you’re like me, I struggle with the truth that there are so many things that I cannot control.
But Jesus highlights, he elevates this certainty: There is no safety suit from life’s pain.
It’s a harsh reality in John 16:33 of External Causalities, bracketed by the warmth of a promise to ultimately protect us. Jesus says, “In this world you will have suffering.” Other versions say, “You will have Affliction, Tribulation, or Distress…" You WILL have these traumas. It’s a promise that even if we try and control for everything, we will still be confronted with the reality of life’s insults, life’s wounding/lacerations/injuries…life's traumas.
Even embedded in the blessing in Matthew 5, Jesus’ most famous sermon, is Jesus acknowledging the reality of poverty, sorrow, enemies, powerlessness, persecution, evil, abuse…
YOU WILL HAVE SUFFERING.
That is out of your control.
You will have suffering, but listen to me, suffering will not have you!
The reality is that we didn’t need Jesus to tell us that we will have suffering, that it’s inevitable, but I am so glad that he did. Because there is so much shame that we wear over things we cannot control, shame generated by external causalities.
Now let’s get down into the specifics: from things like our biology, our deregulating neurologically induced trauma. Some of us suffer from mental frameworks that we cannot control. If you’re like me, your baseline when you start your day is LOW. A low that forces the need, for me, to have projects, things that distract me from the low, things that I’m creating like music, or building furniture, or writing books, or cleaning the house like mad just to draw me away from myself.
There’s a chemical imbalance that won’t be cured with patience or positive thinking. It’s far more complex than that, and I cannot encourage you enough to seek out a mental health professional. Especially, if you’ve tried everything. We have incredible counselors and resources here that can help to get you started on your journey towards health. There is so much in our neurology that is beyond our control.
But Jesus is reminding us that these kinds of traumas that fill us with the shame of feeling like we did something to deserve this depression, it’s not on us.
We will have suffering, but suffering will not have us.
From the brokenness in our neurology, to ACUTE TRAUMA.
What is that? For me, it’s been a racially charged incident I can’t get out of my head, or a pulmonary embolism after a knee surgery that almost killed me, and the worry that it’ll happen again.
Or maybe it happened to be a Tuesday, and you happened to be at the wrong place and time, and someone chose malevolence. They chose abuse for you, or maybe you witnessed a horrifying act. That’s not on you. You did nothing. That’s a broken world, and your life was never meant to experience it that way, but now, without permission, you bear the scars, and as a defense mechanism from the pain, you might have convinced yourself that maybe you deserved that. You’re not worth the kind of love and dignity you thought you were, it’s your fault, and you’ve lowered your self-worth because of this acutely traumatic circumstance. And now your mind and body is trying to protect you from hope/joy/self-worth by altering your capacity to reach a level of homeostasis. Now your baseline is a depressive state.
Science is just now discovering the world of epigenetics, where life’s traumas/stressors can affect someone so greatly that these traumas can be passed down to generations not yet even born. But it’s not on you.
You will have suffering, but suffering will not have you.
Or maybe the external causality hasn’t been neurological, or acute, maybe it’s been chronic trauma; a slow drip, subtle changes in the ambient temperature of your life, and you didn’t realize it was happening to you. It’s just the way it was. Maybe it’s a chronic medical condition, chronic pain or discomfort slowly ratcheting up.
For me, it’s been 8 years of Chronic Urticaria and four years of muscle twitching, both with no known cause or cure other than reducing the irritating symptoms. Just in February I had to have a total thyroidectomy because it been enflamed, and overactive, and there were nodules suspicious for cancer. All of these things causing me to feel isolated, like I’m the only one that contends with all of this stuff, and downstream of that, greater levels of depression set in.
Well, maybe it’s not a medical condition that’s messing with your mind. Maybe You didn’t know that you weren’t always supposed to be belittled, called derogatory names on a daily basis, looked at with disgust by those who were supposed to look at you with love. You didn’t know that those closest to you were supposed to be empathetic towards you. You just adjusted to the chronic negativity. That was normalcy for you, and you didn’t know to question it. The loneliness and isolation you felt when no one showed up for the many things that everyone else’s parents did affected you. The constant lack of friendship at school or work affected you, and you just accepted that your chronically traumatic lifestyle was what you deserved.
You will have suffering, but listen to me, suffering will not have you.
So what hope can I offer you through the depression that’s derived from the things that are out of our control? These external causalities. In Psalm 139 we read this perspective from King David – A man on the run, anxiety ridden, full of sorrow, pulled into dark places by the emotional vicissitudes, the highs and lows of life. Even here at the end of this Psalm he acknowledges that there are those who are bloodthirsty and want him killed. He cannot control the destructive will of others and the trauma, the pain, that they want inflict. But he understands one thing about the nature of God.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
In a broad/beautiful way, David understood something about the nature of God that would eventually be distilled to one word in the New Testament.
Matthew 1:23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
The reality of the with-ness (If I can make that a word) of God is so important, especially through our out-of-control traumas. Downstream from that, in the space of our depression, His name is Immanuel - God is with us - He is not distant. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. And why, because he is Immanuel, He IS God with us.
Studies show how providing the stability of your presence to those who suffer reduces social isolation, and stress. It provides emotional support, creates opportunities for personal development, a sense of belonging, and support through these challenges. Proverbs 17:17 A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need. Listen, there is need everywhere, it can be overwhelming, but you and I can begin to meet it by simply being with those closest to you. Those who you know are struggling.
Listen to me, suffering will not have you…God is with you…God has you.
John 16:33
In this world you will have suffering. But take courage! I have overcome the world.
So we’ve called out the External Causalities or the world of things out of our control. We’ve broken them down into three categories – Neurological, Acute & Chronic – while highlighting the with-ness of God as well as our participation in that with-ness through it. And now for the second category; the one that we have control over based on the worlds of decisions that we make, the category of Internal Contributions. I’ll break it down in two ways: What we choose to intake, and the health conscious choices we make. What’s common among them both is our decisions that contribute to, or worsen, our mental states of depression.
God created us with the ability for empathy, It’s the unique ability to understand and share the feelings of another, of your family, and friends, and those in your community. We’re encouraged to leverage this empathic capacity: 1 Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. But one thing to know is that we haven’t been given a limitless and incorruptible supply of empathy.
There’s a shadow side to empathy. Our ability to share the feelings of another can get co-opted by the charged emotions and intentions of the millions of political and social platforms around us. The fear-based messaging activates a trauma response. Watching various forms of violence and arguments over and over and over again on news outlets does the same thing, and the tragedy is that while the digital landscape depletes our energy, we have very little healthy energy left for the person-to-person interactions we have with those who are despairing.
Beyond Neurological, Acute, and Chronic trauma is Vicarious Trauma. The kind of trauma that turns up the volume on depression if we’re not vigilant, if we abdicate our role as the gatekeepers of our inner world. If we fail to be the vanguards against the many stress inducing things that shout for our attention, we’ll find ourselves sharing in the kinds of feelings that lead to depression even without the trauma happening to us. Studies show that the effects of Vicarious Trauma mirror the symptoms of PTSD. Our bodies don’t know the difference. This is why proverbs says…
Proverbs 4:23…Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
In other words, be the gatekeeper of your heart. And how do we do that? We create Consumption Boundaries.
From twitter feeds, to comment sections, to emotionally charged reels and news outlets, to the violence in shows, or in movies, to screen time, to person-to-person interactions with negative people. You and I choose the intake amount. But quite often we don’t choose, we just consume and allow ourselves to marinate in the playgrounds of Vicarious Trauma. So this week, on your phones, go into your settings and set up screen time notifications – set time limits for apps, set time limits for TV consumption. Maybe consider a total fast from the digital world, and see how drastically your inner world changes when you guard your heart. Create consumption boundaries
Within these consumption boundaries consider this last thing: the health-conscious choices that we make - and I want to share some things that are accessible to all of us - I recognize that sometimes getting help can feel cost prohibitive, but there is Cost-Free-Care. There are provisions from God in what he has made that might not eliminate depression, but will help to mitigate the pain of it. We’re made not only to exist IN this world, but also, to thrive because of it.
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